Pass trade pacts; create more jobs

Here's an easy way to boost exports and create 250,000 jobs.

Express-News Editorial Board

Updated 12:01 am, Tuesday, August 16, 2011

In a Rose Garden speech this month, President Barack Obama laid out his plan to invigorate job growth. The president wants to extend payroll tax cuts for another year, create an infrastructure bank and reform the patent process — all decent proposals.

The president also called on Congress to pass three long-stalled free-trade agreements. Those trade pacts — with Colombia, Korea and Panama — could provide an immediate boost to the U.S. economy.

“I want Congress to pass a set of trade deals,” the president said, “deals we've already negotiated that would help displaced workers looking for new jobs and would allow our businesses to sell more products in countries in Asia and South America, products that are stamped with the words ‘Made in America.'”

When it comes to Republicans in Congress, President Obama will find that he is pushing against an open door. GOP support for the trade deals is strong. It has been since 2007, when the pacts were originally negotiated.

Democrats, including the president, have gummed up the ratification process, first by forcing renegotiations of the deals to make them more palatable to domestic labor interests and then by including expansion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance program in the package. Even now, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is still balking.

They would level the playing field for U.S. exporters in nations where competitors from China and the European Union are locking up favorable terms. And they would reassert the U.S. commitment to free trade and the global economy at a critical time.

This is a no-brainer.

President Obama has talked up the importance of passing these trade agreements before, without success.

This time, he needs to follow through, end the extraneous delays and prevail on members of his own party to get the pacts approved and get Americans back to work.